Bricksetters' Bricklink stores

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Several simple orders this weekend, including my first involving sales tax. I put it in additional charges along with handling, messaged the buyer, and put it in my invoice template. The buyer was understanding, I worried they wouldn't notice or it would be a domestic equivalent of a foreign buyer mad you won't lie on a customs form.Parted out 4 #41180

So I am only a couple of weeks into store ownership and so far 3 orders. Two from buyers with zero feed back. 2 orders from the UK and 1 from Canada. All orders so far have been for minifigures and polybags. Now waiting for my first orders to arrive and hoping for some feedback.

Now considering lowering my minimum purchase from £10 to £5.

Dreading my first large parts order that involves a lot of sorting and hunting. But looking forward to the moola!

Most of my orders from buyers with low feedback go smoothly. The honest buyer has to start somewhere. Sometimes they build up feedback quickly, maybe from several orders placed around the same time. Sometimes even -1 feedback orders have gone well (the problem was awhile ago and they got back on track)

Several dozen lots is a pain, but I considered value rather than quantity per lot. Whatever the overall order, high quantity lots can be difficult since one has to count all those pieces and might need to look through several unsorted bags.

"Yes, I see your payment. Don't worry." have needed to send that to a lot of nervous buyers

I hope Mr. 300 Lots is patient - packed a 1 lot and 28 lot tonight. Also have one of nearly 100 lots to do, but that's all Technic so I won't have to look in as many different places, and postage will be slightly cheaper split into 2 packages, so I don't need to do it all at once.

For the ~100 lot Technic order, postage is actually slightly more as 2 packages, but a small enough difference that I didn't worry since it helped me ship quicker. I was able to send something late Saturday, which I like to do any weekend, but especially a holiday weekend (today is Labor Day). After that, I was able to do relatively more sorting since there wasn't as much of a rush to mail after the weekend.

I avoid using 13c prices (I'm not superstitious but customers might be), just started using 12.9, usually I have half cent increments between 10 and 20

Just had my 4th order, which is a parts order. 66 parts over about 12 lots. As i only sell new bricks i had to open around 30 sets (inc polys and mixels) to find all the parts. It took a couple of hours.

It is clear that i need to find a better system for part storage for sales!

I should also probably drop my minimum order from £10 to £5 on the assumption that this may attract my buyers.

So far £52 in my pocket after costs for 4 sales. Not too bad. 1/7th of a new UCS MF!

Several simple orders in a row, most high value, a very refreshing change of pace

@TheFew making sales before sorting the set? so been there done that. I try to organize my inventory by color, then type, then exact part, so I just need to find the right container rather than digging through unsorted bags.

Any tips for starting a new store? I am starting to have a load of extra sets and parts that I want to try to sell.

- Did you only start selling locally or worldwide?- Is it better to sell sets in parts or as complete sets?- Was a lot of time spent on store terms before opening?- Did you start out with lower prices to get things going?

- Did you only start selling locally or worldwide?International as I was mainly selling rare parts so Sweden would have limited the market.

- Is it better to sell sets in parts or as complete sets?Effort vs profit as parted out sets can sell for more but then some parts will never sell - listing can take a long time especially if you sorting loose pieces and not parting out sets. Parting out is much faster as Bricklink has tools for this. I've sold very few sets through Bricklink (Tradera or Blocket may be better for this).

- Was a lot of time spent on store terms before opening?Look at some other stores to get an idea of what people want to know. Maybe give an approximate exchange rate in the shipping section as SKr won't mean much to most buyers,

- Did you start out with lower prices to get things going?Not really - I mostly went with the 6 month average but I went higher for rarer parts.

Other stuff

Thing about minimum charges and shipping. As a buyer I get put off by Paypal charges and additional shipping charges so I just priced my parts at a level that I'm happy to sell for. I try to use recycled packaging where possible but buying a bulk box of padded envelopes and grip seal bags was a good move at the start.

Thanks for the information. Having sets listed would not cost me anything I guess so I can test the waters with some parted out sets and some listed as complete. I also have a bunch of minifigures that I can list to see if anyone is interested to buy. Will try to list some sets on Tradera as well.

The numbers of terms varies a lot between stores. From nothing to a full legal document. Somewhere inbetween in probably the best.

As a buyer I also try to avoid stores with Paypal charges unless they really have something I need and the price isn't to high. Will try to keep shipping at a minimum.

I think that buyers get nervous about shipping prices and the condition for sets. Until last week I'd only ever sold polybags and very small sets like the mini London bus. When I finally sold a larger set it was to someone who asked to collect it in person so that they could check that the seals were intact.

I have to say opening a store on Bricklink was very easy!
I stuck to new parts from set part-outs. Adding these to my inventory via the tools was rather easy and using the automatic pricing tool (set to market average) was great. I have so far avoided used parts, as I cannot be bothered to sort and grade them at this time.
I also sell minifigures (new and used) I also found adding these easy, but manually priced them, aiming to be somewhat competitive against other UK sellers.
I started out with shipping in the UK only, but soon had people from overseas asking to buy, so I amended my store to enable this.
With regards to terms, I used a copy of the terms from a number of stores I have used before. I.e. I selected the bits from each of them that I felt were relevant to me.
Re fees. I only charge postage at this time, as I try to re-use old packaging and I am happy to swallow the PP fee. Should I run out of old packaging then I may add a token charge to cover costs.
I also started with a minimum order of £10, but may soon reduce this to £5.
Hope that helps.

@TheFew once I submit a part out I may as well sort the physical parts,. since I'd have to delist each one to do something with the whole set.

@KlintanInternational isn't much more trouble than domestic, so I may as well ship worldwide. Sometimes I have difficulty figuring out a foreign address format. International PayPal fees are higher. US users can't directly pass that along. My handling charge partially approximates the difference. I had been charging $1 more than domestic but just changed that to 50c. In general, I have a handling charge rather than a minimnum buy.

I buy a few sizes of bubblemailers and gripseal bags in bulk. I reuse what I receive but it's not enough.

Whole sets have less profit margin and can be harder to ship. For sets that come in a box, box condition can be an issue, and I give the option to send unboxed. Polybags are easier. I put them in a gripseal bag for further protection in shipment; a quart bag (7 x 7.75 in, 17.78 x 19.69 cm) is just big enoguh for 3 with the top plastic flap folded down. Just account for the cost and weight thereof.

@TheFew once I submit a part out I may as well sort the physical parts,. since I'd have to delist each one to do something with the whole set.

@KlintanInternational isn't much more trouble than domestic, so I may as well ship worldwide. Sometimes I have difficulty figuring out a foreign address format. International PayPal fees are higher. US users can't directly pass that along. My handling charge partially approximates the difference. I had been charging $1 more than domestic but just changed that to 50c. In general, I have a handling charge rather than a minimnum buy.

I buy a few sizes of bubblemailers and gripseal bags in bulk. I reuse what I receive but it's not enough.

Whole sets have less profit margin and can be harder to ship. For sets that come in a box, box condition can be an issue, and I give the option to send unboxed. Polybags are easier. I put them in a gripseal bag for further protection in shipment; a quart bag (7 x 7.75 in, 17.78 x 19.69 cm) is just big enoguh for 3 with the top plastic flap folded down. Just account for the cost and weight thereof.

Can't remember if I posted or not, but I re-opened the other day just to shift some sets and bulk parts that have been hanging around a while. Also added some recent SW sets that I old the wife were for selling :)

I'm having a clear up this week so will be adding much more hopefully.

hadn't thought of takeaway containers for part storage. if they're like the Chinese food tubs I'm thinking of, good idea. shallow enough to be easy to look through, large enough to be useful. I mostly use 6qt bins, and sometimes those hold too many little bags or I have to leave empty space to avoid that. are the lids flat? raised lids could also waste space.

@TheFewI have some international buyers walk away because of high postage, but no haggling. I don't offer insurance because I don't think it's worthwhile and not offering it makes the transaction simpler. Insurance it's available on 1st class mail international, so Priority postage would essentially make insurance cost even more

I wouldn't know where to shop around in another country, but also check besides Amazon. That's about the same price as my 6qt tubs, so not as good a deal by volume, but better than a lot of small containers. I have enough storage containers for now, and limited space to put them, but I'll consider this when I expand. They should stack, but if what I use is any indication, there's a limit to how tall a pile is stable. A firm surface helps, also putting particularly heavy tubs near the bottom.

@KingAlanI my plan is to stack these about 4 high in underbed drawers. So they should be stable enough for that. I agree that they probably would not stack too hight as I imagine that they are very cheap flimsy plastic.

I have a few huge Sterilite tubs under my bed. Most of the contents are non-LEGO, but I have some particularly large stuff there. Sounds like the same idea of using that space but with smaller containers.

I like to keep some regular size tubs available to use as temporary storage while going through another container or while working on a large order (to store lots I've already picked)

I put something over the heat run so I don't drop any more parts down the grate

I notice @SumoLego liked my post with "2 #41123, #75170 sans Thrawn - offline purchases it took me awhile to list, more of that to go". He's the one who sold me the 75170, and the #75156 I already listed. I still have to list the used #10234 and build started some pieces pulled #70144 from him, but that's more work than parting out new.

My store has been open less than 1 month and I have had nine order so far totaling £128 (inc postage). Mostly purchases of Batman Battle Pods, CMFs and some parts. I guess sales will slow down once the more desirable items have vanished from my stock! Nearly a quarter of the way there to buying a UCS MF!

Sicne I rarely sell used, only a few lots were already in my inventory. Disassembling it feels similar to sorting a new set. I'm low on storage bins, but Target doesn't have any on sale this week, so I was motivated to sort other stuff to free up space.Recently passed 500 feedback. All positive except for 1 neutral for taking awhile to ship, fair enoughFinally finished the 300 lot order. That buyer seems understanding; I'm including some bonus parts from his request list.Can't find a storage bin, fortunately don't need any of the parts right now, but of course frustrating. Moving the affected lots into stockroom until it turns up.Previously all of my tiered discounts were at least 5%. Now I go lower than that if there's an extremely small quantity difference.Listed a #30401 - was one short of a part from it, quite plausible that I lost something from the dozens I parted out before

Store open since June 2017 mainly selling no longer wanted new sets, polybags and a few minifigures. Very first order was also a non payer but better since, total completed sales to date of ~ EUR 400 across 5 orders. Got an order Sunday night for EUR 85 but looks like a non payer.

So what is the deal with non-paying buyers? How long do you give them to pay? what action do you take once you decide they won't be likely to pay?

I send them a polite reminder after three days and reiterate the store terms and give them a deadline to reply. If I don't hear back I proceed to the non-payment buyer section and cancel it followed by blocking them from ordering again.

So what is the deal with non-paying buyers? How long do you give them to pay? what action do you take once you decide they won't be likely to pay?

I plan to wait a week and cancel if I don't hear from him. The postage was reasonable (parcel, buyer in same country) so it wouldn't have been a reason for the buyer to backout. He is a new user with zero feedback, signed up a few days before. If I don't hear from him at all then I will add neutral feedback.

The postage on the first order was 70% of the set value so I can understand why that guy didn't proceed, I gave him the option of cancelling when I invoiced him but he didn't respond at all, so I cancelled after approx a week and added neutral feedback.

Seller can cancel fairly easily with the Request To Cancel and then Cancel. You can also do a Non-Paying Buyer Alert (NPB) - more info here: https://www.bricklink.com/help.asp?helpID=72 but I don't expect to be out of pocket (as a Cancel also cancels the BL fees) so won't try to force the sale.

I have the request quote feature enabled, both of the non payments ignored it and went straight to ordering. It would be good if you could disable the Order button and force a quote request before ordering.

I use to do the cancel after 7 days thing, but retaliatory feedback will eventually force you to do the NPB option which takes another 7 days before you can cancel. That is the only way to avoid retaliatory feedback. Bricklink will not remove (or at least doesn't have to remove) retaliatory feedback if you didn't do the NPB option.

I have a request from a 0 feedback buyer to ship a fairly large order (for me at least) to Czech Republic, which outside of countries I ship. It is outside of DELCON, but does anyone know the Czech Republic mail website will give updates once it gets there? Or should I just avoid this?

So what is the deal with non-paying buyers? How long do you give them to pay? what action do you take once you decide they won't be likely to pay?

I normally wait 5-7 days and send a polite reminder, if I don't hear anything after another 3-5 days I file a NPB. I just see it as a part of doing business so expect to get them from time to time. Think I've had 3 or 4 out of 260 orders, which isn't too bad.

I have a request from a 0 feedback buyer to ship a fairly large order (for me at least) to Czech Republic, which outside of countries I ship. It is outside of DELCON, but does anyone know the Czech Republic mail website will give updates once it gets there? Or should I just avoid this?

That depends on your comfort level. You can still insure it (InsurePost cover Czech Republic). I personally only ship to countries where I can send insured (minus France, China and Italy), whether they have DELCON or not.

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